Mr. Speaker, in order to put my question, I must indicate why I am asking it. The Canada assistance plan was established in 1969 to take poverty into account. Until the Liberals took office, transfers for health and education only took population into account, whereas the assistance plan took poverty into account.

In 1994, Quebec was getting 34% of the funds from that plan. When the Minister of Finance did what was called a block transfer he substituted, for the health sector, the figure based on the population for a figure that takes poverty into account.

How can the hon. member explain that this government, after shedding tears over—

Mr. Speaker, I would like to be able to continue. I did not interrupt the hon. member when she spoke.

When I raise the issue of fairness, and I am not the only one to do so, I include fairness between individuals. And here, through transfers and equalization payments to provinces, we will see that each individual will be treated fairly on the basis of the income earned over the year.

That is what fairness is all about in Canada. That is what being a Liberal is all about.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise to address the House in today's budget debate.

Before I go any further I would like to extend my sincerest congratulations to my hon. colleague, the Minister of Finance, on the presentation of his sixth budget. I have had the honour of representing my constituents in this place for more than 10 years. In all that time I have never seen a budget that was so well received by Canadians.

Average Canadians support the measures in the budget. I know frustrated members opposite are wondering why Canadians are feeling so good about budget '99. I will take the opportunity to explain it to them.

It is about balance. The budget builds on and continues the tradition of responsible, prudent fiscal management of its five predecessors, and provides the balance and fairness that Canadians want and expect.

It is not skewed to the left with incomprehensible spending, as some of the NDP would favour. It does not provide for the irresponsible withering away of the federal government, as the Reform Party demands. It certainly does not manage the nation's finances in the capricious manner the Tories were famous for.

The budget is balanced, balanced both fiscally and in what it provides Canadians. It is a good news budget for all Canadians. That is why it is being so well received across the land, in Toronto, Regina, Edmonton and in my home city of Winnipeg.

Since I have only 10 minutes to speak to this important issue, I will not spend too much on the minutia of the budget. Rather I would like to concentrate my comments on what the budget means for the average Manitoban and the good citizens of Charleswood St. James—Assiniboia.

First, let us look at health care. The budget increases federal cash transfers for health care to the provinces by an incredible $11.5 billion over the next five years. This is significant. It is a significant reinvestment by any measure and is the single largest investment ever announced by the government.

This cash infusion into our health care system fully restores the health component of the Canada health and social transfer to its level in the mid-1990s before the attack of the deficit curtailed expenditures.

As a result of this initiative, the Manitoba government will receive an additional $425 million in federal transfers to fund health care throughout the keystone province.

I would hope the provincial government in Manitoba would use some of that money to reduce waiting lines, augment staff and improve services at the Grace hospital, the main hospital servicing the needs of Winnipeg and Headingley.

Manitoba's health care system would also benefit from an additional $1.4 billion that this budget sets aside for new investments in health pilot projects, prenatal care, aboriginal initiatives and health information programs like the screening assessment and care planning automated tool recently announced by the health minister during a trip to Winnipeg.

Whether they live in the Courts of St. James or the Kiwanis Courts, well known senior citizens complexes in my riding, Manitobans want and deserve reasonable access to good quality health care. This budget goes a long way to securing that access.

Whether it be reductions in EI premiums or the introduction of the child tax benefit, every budget this government has introduced has included some form of tax reduction. In the past all these measures were targeted for special needs or to low income Canadians.

Last year, however, we began the process of introducing broad based tax relief. This year, I am happy to say, we have built on that.

This budget eliminates the 3% surtax introduced by the Tories in their unsuccessful attempts to reduce the deficit. It increases the basic personal exemption to $7,131 for every Canadian taxpayer. It also enriches and broadens the child tax benefit by a further $300 million. Combined with the measures in last year's budget, the 1999 budget delivers $16.6 billion in tax relief over the next three years.

The best news is that this is only the beginning. With the nation's finances firmly under control, this Liberal government is committed to reducing taxes further and will do so over the rest of this mandate and into the next.

What do these tax measures mean for the average Manitoban? It means that the single person living in an apartment on Portage Avenue and earning $20,000 a year will see his taxes fall by at least 10%. It means that the single mother living on Carriage Road and trying to raise her kids on an income of $30,000 will pay absolutely no federal tax. It means that the middle class family of four on Charleswood Road with an income of $50,000 will see its federal taxes fall by 15%. In fact, every Canadian will pay less federal tax as a result of this budget. Even the members of the Reform Party have to agree to that.

This budget is not only about health care and tax cuts. It is also about securing a strong and vibrant future for all Canadians. This budget invests more than $1.8 billion over the next three years in the creation, dissemination and commercialization of knowledge and jobs. This money will be used to boost funding for the Canada foundation for innovation, a fund that has been used to modernize the research infrastructure at the University of Manitoba, the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg and the St. Boniface general hospital.

Our university students will also profit from increased funding to the research councils and to the network of centres of excellence.

Manitoba's aerospace industry located in the main in my riding has already benefited from a $3 million technology partnership Canada investment at Bristol Aerospace. This investment helped Bristol secure a $100 million contract to supply composite components to Boeing creating nearly 300 jobs. TPC provides fully repayable loans to assist high technology companies develop and market new products. It will be strengthened by an additional $50 million annually.

While Manitoba is fortunate in having the lowest unemployment rate in the country, unemployment in the north remains high, especially among our aboriginal communities. This budget allocates additional resources for job creation and for aboriginal issues.

Charleswood St. James—Assiniboia is also home to CFB Winnipeg and headquarters for 1 Canadian Air Division. The base employs thousands of military personnel who welcome the $175 million increase in the defence budget and who await the implementation of the quality of life package by the government.

I would like to address one other issue that is of major concern to the citizens of Charleswood St. James—Assiniboia. That issue is the national debt. This government remains committed to the prudent fiscal planning that has eliminated the deficit and enabled reinvestments in health care, education, economic programs and tax cuts. We will not stray from this course. The nation's books will be balanced for a second year in a row, the first time since 1952 that the federal government has been deficit free for two consecutive years. Furthermore, we are committed to balancing the books next year and the year after that, only the third time since Confederation that the federal government will have introduced four consecutive balanced budgets.

The national debt is falling and will continue to fall in the future. This government has implemented a viable debt repayment plan that allocates the contingency reserve of $3 billion in each budget to debt repayment. This measure, coupled with a growing economy, will see our debt to GDP ratio fall to under 62% by the year 2000-01 and free up more money for programs and tax cuts.

I think Canadians appreciate this budget. They particularly appreciate the course that it sets out for the next few years.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member for Charleswood St. James—Assiniboia for his help in a little research I have undertaken today.

I am looking for an answer to the following questions: Where were the Liberal members from Quebec when the decision was made that all Quebec should get is less than 10% of the new money added in this week's budget? Where were the Liberal members from Quebec when the decision was made that Ontario should receive $950 million while Quebec would receive a mere $150 million? Where were the Liberal ministers and members from Quebec when the decision was made to give 78% of the new money to the three wealthiest provinces?

Once again, the federal Liberal ministers and members from Quebec were not there. Did the hon. member see them anywhere? Did he see them standing up for Quebec's interests or did they not take part in the debate at all, as usual?

Mr. Speaker, I point out that our esteemed Minister of Finance comes from the province of Quebec. If there is any minister well known for consultation, any minister known for reaching out to his fellow politicians from his own Quebec caucus and his entire province, it is the Minister of Finance.

Whether it is the chairman of the Quebec caucus on this side or all members, they are fully consulted and they have been full participants in the budget process. I can assure the hon. member of that.

Mr. Speaker, today we have seen a lot of patting themselves on the back by members of the Liberal government about this budget. This is their sixth budget.

Being the sixth budget and that we have a major trading partner in the United States where 83% of our exports go to, why have we been falling so far behind in standard of living compared with the United States growth? In other words, living standards in Canada measured as a percentage of gross domestic product per person are now a full 24% lower than they are in the United States. That is a 6% decrease since 1990.

If we are doing so well here, with unemployment rates still twice as high as in the United States, with 2% unemployment rates in California, why are we not experiencing the same type of increase in our standard of living that the Americans are?

Mr. Speaker, I remind the member that this is only our sixth budget. This is only the sixth year that we have been in power in Ottawa. Things are getting better.

When we came here in the fall of 1993 we were staring at a deficit of $42 billion. It is all gone. When we came here we did not have the luxury of surpluses. Now we have modest surpluses. Because of the kind of fiscal management that has been brought to bear by the finance minister, we can do things like restore health care funding, not only that but deliver tax cuts.

Over the next three years Canadians will enjoy the benefits of a tax cut exceeding $16 billion. That is better than what we had six years ago.

Mr. Speaker, I remind the hon. member for Charleswood St. James—Assiniboia of 20 years ago when I was doing documentary work in Winnipeg on the native urban migration and this same member was a radio announcer at the CBC. At that time it was indicated that within 20 years we were to see massive problems with native people in the city unless we took some real initiatives on their behalf.

We now have gangs roaming the streets of Winnipeg. We have one million poor children in this country. The members of the government ask us to look at the demographics. I say look at the demographics 35 years from now. What will those poor children be doing? What will be the strains on the justice system, the human misery, their families? Where on earth do members see this as being a positive budget for the poor people in this country?

We are seeing an increasing gap between the rich and the poor, the elite and the street, and this is a shameful budget when it comes to addressing those problems.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from the hon. member. I know when she was living in Winnipeg she was a fine contributor to the broadcasting community.

The hon. member touched on a critical issue. I do not think anybody can be proud of the aboriginal problems in this country. They exist widely in my city of Winnipeg and in the province of Manitoba. Nobody is proud of these problems. We are trying to aggressively attack them.

When we went through program review and through deficit reductions in program cuts over the last few years, the one department that was not affected was the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. We did not cut the budget of that department.

But there are strategies laid out in this budget. There will be a significant health care announcement regarding the aboriginal community in my province next week.

Mr. Speaker, it is with some pleasure and certainly with a lot of frustration that I rise today to detail our position on the budget.

I would echo the comments of the previous speaker from the Liberal Party as I also come from Manitoba. I have a lot of pride in what has been achieved in Manitoba over the last number of years.

I must say, however, that the hon. member from the Liberal Party and his government do not have a lot they can say about the improvements in Manitoba. The improvements that have happened, the 4.8% unemployment rate, the increase in the economy, were done because of a provincial government that was able to put into place its philosophies and financial understanding of its budget so that it could develop that economy in Manitoba. So I take some exception to the federal Liberal member's taking credit for something that was done in the province of Manitoba.

As I said, I stand with some frustration in speaking to the budget put forward in the House. I have a number of areas of frustration.

I guess we really did not have to hear the finance minister's speech the other night because had we all been listening to the media and reading the newspapers we could have heard what would be placed on the floor. It was a budget that was put out to the Canadian public long before it ever hit this floor. Trial balloons were being floated constantly by the finance minister. Obviously his program was being put out in the media as opposed to being put out where it should been, in the House.

There was frustration in seeing the Liberals self-congratulating themselves on putting forward what I considered to be a smoke and mirrors budget. That is not my comment. The hon. member says that Winnipeg and members of his constituency are pleased about what the budget has embraced. A headline in one Manitoba newspapers read “The Smoke and Mirrors Budget”. I do not see where that is embracing the budget. It does, however, get to the root of the issue where there is a lot of smoke and mirrors. A shell game is going on in the budget with which I will deal in the next couple of minutes.

I am splitting my time with the hon. member for New Brunswick Southwest who will be speaking for the other 10 minutes.

Let us deal with a couple of very pertinent issues. The budget is heralded as the health care budget. The hon. member just said in his speech that an incredible—that was the term used; we can check Hansard —$11.5 billion would be put back into health care over the next five years. Incredible, incroyable.

Would he use the same term, incredible, to describe the $17 billion that was cut from the health care budget? Is that incredible, incroyable? Since 1993, $17 billion were cut from the health care budget, but now all of a sudden $11.5 billion is incredible. Canadians are smarter than that. They do not think so, but I know Canadians will see through their shell game.

There is a surplus today. We do not know what the surplus will be because games are being played. Dollars are being budgeted in the 1998-99 budget that have not been expended but will be taken forward into the 1999-2000 budget. What is the real number?

When we deal with budgets and budgetary functions we try to honestly put before the constituencies the revenue and the expenditure. What was left over from the two was some surplus to do with whatever we wished. We made sure the constituencies had input into the spending of those surpluses.

We do not know what the surplus is for 1998-99. We do not know what the budgeted surpluses are for 1999-2000 or where in fact the finance minister will spend these surpluses. Let us make no mistake about it. They will be spent on probably a leadership campaign, not directly but certainly during the leadership campaign. I suspect we will see a lot of those surpluses rising to the surface and being put into programs that are perhaps pet programs for particular individuals on the Liberal benches.

Let us get back to health care. The hon. member stood here and read a press release which said that $425 million over the next five years would be put back into Manitoba. What the hon. member neglected to say was that Manitoba had been impacted by $240 million in cuts every year for the last three years. The numbers do not add up.

Manitoba has given back substantially more over the last three years than the government is prepared to put back in over the next five years. Why did the government not make it 10 years instead of 5 years? Why did the government not give a real big number so Canadians could be snowed? Why only five years? Why did it not deal with 10 years? Maybe I am giving the finance minister some opportunity to change his mandate or his method of operation for the next budget so he can expand it over more than a five year term.

Let us talk about some other areas of serious importance in my constituency. That area obviously is agriculture. The 1998-99 budget, the one that will be ending on March 31 of this year, shows $600 million being put to an aid program, the AIDA program. I find it very unlikely that dollars will flow to farmers by March 31 of this year, but $600 million are reflected in that budget.

I assume that will be put in trust and will be put forward to the next budget year, the year 1999-2000. The auditor general will have a lot to say about the shenanigans in this budget. It is not good accounting procedure, but it makes the government look good. Unfortunately it will come back to haunt the government.

In agriculture we have been saying all along that we do not need an ad hoc program. We agree that the government should put together some vision, foresight and thought and put dollars in a budget that will be able to look after the cyclical problems of agriculture on a regular basis, like the GRIP program that was cut by the government in 1995. Short term gain for long term pain continues. There is nothing reflected in the budget to show for a long term solution to agricultural cyclical downturns. That to me is a deficiency in the budget.

The hon. member for Charlesbourg said with great pride that he has a Canadian forces base in his constituency. With great pride I say that I also have a Canadian forces base in my constituency. I probably see the personnel, talk to them and deal with them more often than does the hon. member. I am in constant touch with that constituency.

The $175 million reflected in the budget do not even come within a fraction of what was requested to bring military families up to standard. The budget does not reflect anything for needed equipment purchases.

We sit in the House every day and talk about the Sea King helicopters. We talk about military equipment that is 30 and 35 years old. That was not reflected in the budget because it is a health care budget that is also a farce and a sham.

If there is one request I could make—and I know there is a majority government and that the budget will pass—of the Minister of Finance and the government, it would be that the next time they table a budget in the House they should be totally up front with Canadians, tell them exactly what they are doing to them and tell them that the tax cuts will not be reflected in their next paycheque.

I have request of Canadians. They should not start spending their tax breaks because they will find there is not a lot there. With the CPP increases and because the tax breaks will take place on July 1 of this year, an income of $39,000 will have a $3 income tax increase for the year 1999. I would really like to thank the Liberal government for that.

Mr. Speaker, I listened to some of the debate today. I understand when members of the New Democratic Party give a long list of things that we should have done and could have done that add another $10 billion to $15 billion to the cost of operating the nation's programs. However what puzzles me completely is that for years and years I have sat in the House, both in opposition and on the government side, and have heard speaker after speaker from the Conservative Party talk about the importance of the Liberal Party putting the fiscal framework of the country's books back in order and about over the last few years our Minister of Finance following the direction of the Progressive Conservative Party so much so that for the first time in 50 years we have a balanced set of books.

We have a balanced set of books. We did all this in terms of health care and huge tax cuts. The member lists many other areas in which he would have wanted spending. How much of a deficit would he have wanted the Minister of Finance to take on?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for pointing out that the reason the budget is balanced is the policies that were put in place by the previous Conservative government. I will not go over them, but because of NAFTA we now have an export economy that is generating substantial revenues that the government can hide and spend. We have low interest rates because the government has more money to hide and spend. I do not understand how the government can take the GST as its own policy.

We would not like to see a deficit. What is the surplus? Is it $7 million or $14 billion? The government has hidden the surplus. There may not be a deficit. Some of those dollars from the surplus can go into better programs. The government could do a much better job than what it did in the budget simply by identifying what the real surplus will be.

Mr. Speaker, it is too bad members of the Liberal Party will not congratulate the taxpayers of Canada for paying the highest taxes in the land or in the world, practically, in order to make this work. They do not want to give credit where credit is due.

Coming from Manitoba and as one of the Indian Affairs critics I spend a lot of time in the city of Winnipeg where I have witnesses many tragedies regarding people from the native communities who are on the streets. Mike Calder is one of the directors of an organization which I think is called St. Norbert. He came to the government at least five times with proposals to the health care minister and to the justice minister to help to alleviate the problems which exist in Winnipeg with the natives who are on the streets. There has been no response during my tenure in this portfolio from the government whatsoever to assist the city of Winnipeg with that issue.

I am sure the member has been to that area and is familiar with what is going on. Since 1993 has the government ever shown any initiative whatsoever to alleviate the serious problems that exist with natives on the streets of Winnipeg?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. I was born and raised in Manitoba and lived there for most of my live, but fortunately or unfortunately not in the city of Winnipeg.

There is a serious problem in Manitoba as the member pointed out with respect to aboriginals in Winnipeg. To answer the question simply, I have been trying to get to the Department of Indian and Northern Affair. I have been stonewalled on a number of occasions in trying to deal with some aboriginal issues in my own constituency. The understanding in the federal government is somewhat lax or missing. It does not necessarily want to deal with the issues that should be dealt with.

We talk about deficits and we talk about spending. The one good thing that happened in the budget was that there was nothing reflected there to help professional sports teams.

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to respond to the budget. In all fairness, there has been a lot of good publicity on the budget and most of us would accept that fact although we may disagree with some of the headlines. There has been some analytical appraisal of the budget and not all of it has been favourable. Despite the optics, this budget is going to have a very short shelf life and the reason has been articulated in the House more than once this morning.

When I look at the budget, at the numbers and at how it was presented by the finance minister, I cannot help but think of Mark Twain who coined the expression “lies, damned lies and statistics”. I am much too polite to use the word “lie” in this House when it comes to the budget but I would suggest that the minister is using a lot of creative accounting to come up with the numbers. No one here knows what the real numbers are.

Not one member on either side of the House can tell us how the surplus in the EI account works into the budget numbers. No one knows and if they do know they are not going to tell us. If they did, I think it would expose the finance minister for what he is, someone who is capable of balancing the budget on the backs of the unemployed. The number we often hear is $20 billion which has been taken out of the hides of the employers and the employees and used to help creatively balance his books.

There is a lot of doubt in the minds of ordinary Canadians as to what the minister has really done in the last six budgets he has brought into this House. I agree with the member next to me that a lot of the policies this very government fought against are the ones that are delivering the numbers the Liberals brag about.

We mentioned specifically the free trade agreement. We mention the GST from time to time on this side of the House. It is rolling in revenues of about $20 billion this year compared with about $12 billion the day it was brought in. That is about $20 billion the minister would not have to play with if he had lived up to the 1993 red book promise to rid this country of that hated GST. He can roll around in the luxury of having it there but he has not had to pay the political price for introducing it.

Is that not the Liberal way? Mr. Speaker, I see you nodding in agreement. There is at least one person in this House who is agreeing with me. You were there and you fought that election. You know on the basis of how you fought. That is even a bigger nod, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for that honesty.

This has been called the health budget. We have to be careful what the Liberals call it. I think this same minister called a budget he introduced a couple of years ago the youth budget. Immediately after he introduced the so-called youth budget, 12,000 young Canadians filed for bankruptcy because of their inability to pay off their student loans. Thousands are leaving this country to seek employment.

I do not think the minister can take too much satisfaction from the thematic approach to budget making. Goodness knows what is going to happen to those people who depend on health care services, given the track record of this minister.

The theme is health care. The Liberals are bragging about putting $11.5 billion in. You are right, Mr. Speaker, they are putting it in or we are being led to believe they are. But the timing is the thing, is it not?

The first chunk of change to go in is going into what is called a third party fund. Mr. Speaker, have you ever heard of that type of fund before? It is a clever word game, a third party fund is being created. It will be a $3.5 billion fund but no one is going to draw down any money this year. It will be next year and the year after.

I agree with the member from Manitoba in that I think it is going to coincide with the finance minister's leadership bid. I should not mention the dirty word leadership in here but that is exactly what he has done. He is very clever. The timing will work out perfectly for the finance minister.

Sadly, this is like giving the arsonist credit for burning down your house and then building you a one room shanty. That is exactly what the finance minister has done. He took the torch to health care five years ago. And torched it he did. He immediately extracted almost $6 billion out of health care. He put back $11.5 billion after extracting $6 billion in health care alone and he took $17 billion from the social transfers. If we follow his scenario to its logical conclusion, in the year 2004, we will be into the next millennium if we make it that far, and health care spending will be back to the very same level that we had in 1995.

In Atlantic Canada we call that backward speaking. That is absolutely bizarre. He is taking credit for inventing health care when he is the man who single-handedly wrecked health care. Now the Liberals are standing up and bragging about it.

Back in all the provinces where the hurt was really inflicted, back in New Brunswick and every other province, including his friend Roy's whom he likes to brag about in the House, they are questioning what they are going to do with this money. The feeling is that this infusion of $11.5 billion is going to be used by the provinces to eradicate debt that this character imposed upon them. There will be no change in patient care.

I am speaking about the shelf life of this budget. There will be no changes in terms of rural doctors and services for rural Canadians for years to come. There will be no change in waiting lines or in emergency wards. People are still going to be waiting. They still will not receive the care they should be receiving.

In fact, when money is taken out at the rate the minister has taken it out of health care, it takes more to bring it back to where it was. An analogy would be a house with a leaking roof. If we let the roof leak, the problem gets worse and instead of just having to fix the roof, we would have to fix the rafters, the floor joists and the floors. We are talking about maintenance. They have not had the money to sustain the system over the years. Now we are going to have to wait until the year 2004 before we are back to the level we had in 1995.

Would it take a rocket scientist to figure this guy out? No it would not. It would take an ordinary citizen to look at the numbers, if they were provided. Unfortunately the minister does not disclose the real numbers because he is devious. He is the Houdini of finance. I suggest that he go back to the provinces and teach those finance ministers the magic in his numbers. I go back to the old Mark Twain expression “lies, damned lies and statistics”. This minister fits into the very first category mentioned.

Now the hon. member knows that this kind of talk is quite unparliamentary. I know that he would want to comply with the rules. He cannot do by the back door what he is not allowed to do by the front door. I suggest that perhaps he withdraw those words and carry on for the few seconds he has left in his speech.